BIOSHOCK: Right Place, Right Time, Wrong Guy
by C. Mage
Summary: It was all set up, and Jack's arrival was planned down to the smallest detail. Problem is, when Jack's plane went down, someone ELSE came up for air... Read on and find out if the Wrong Guy might end up being the Right Guy after all...
1. Chapter 1

BIOSHOCKED – Part I: Wrong place at the wrong time

By C. Mage

The best laid plans…it was simple. Create a pawn from your own worst enemy, make him into a tool you can control, get him to do your dirty work, then toss him aside and take control. All you need to do is put him where he'll do what comes naturally: survive.

The problem is, engineering plane crashes you can survive aren't what you'd call an exact science…

I remember fighting my way to the surface, seeing pieces of the plane fall and sink. I didn't know which way was up until I saw the pieces of the plane sink. Good thing, too. My lungs were on fire by the time I broke the surface, and the fire of the downed plane helped me see how bad my situation was. Parts of the plane were still on the surface, and the ocean was aflame.

I thought the whole world was on fire for a few seconds.

A coughing to my right brought me out of it. Another person had survived. I started to swim over when I saw other lights to my right, and I realized that there was some structure, out in the middle of the ocean. I took a closer look.

It was a lighthouse.

My arms and legs were starting to tire as I moved to the other survivor, grabbing his torso under his arms and swimming towards the lighthouse. He didn't fight me, but he was still alive, that much I knew. I found a break in the flames and managed to get to the lighthouse, finding a staircase and lights. As I dragged the other survivor up on the steps, I got a better look at him, discovering two things one right after the other.

First, the survivor was the same sonuvabitch that had caused this whole thing in the first place, taking a gun and shooting the pilot and co-pilot, forcing the plane down here. The second was that there was a large piece of metal in the middle of his torso. He was dying…no, he was already dead. His body just didn't know it yet.

I grabbed his shirt, pulled him up, seawater dripping on his face. "WHY?" I demanded, shaking him. "They're all dead! WHY?!"

He looked up at me and my rage vanished. Drained right out of me like air from a balloon. He didn't say anything, but the look on his face said what his lips couldn't. He looked like a lost kid. Then his eyes closed and his troubles were over.

I checked him over, see if I could find the gun he used. No luck. Found a wallet, some money, picture of the guy with his parents. Nothing I could really use. The only other thing about him that struck me was his wrists. Why would anyone get chain links tattooed on the undersides of their wrists?

I sat down on the steps. It was starting to get colder and I was no closer to getting answers, but I was alive, at the very least. I got to my feet, walking up the steps and hugging my chest.

As I walked up to the large double doors of the lighthouse, I looked up at the light on the top. What was something like this DOING here? Lighthouses are supposed to warn people away from danger. This wasn't a warning. This was more like a beacon. I think this guy, this "Jack" was trying to get here. But why? He wasn't bringing anything here. All he had was that gun and his wallet and his clothes. They have seaplanes, he could've just chartered a plane here.

I looked inside. It was dark, but it was warmer, so I took a few steps into the building to see if I could find a light switch. I heard a creaking sound and turned around just in time to see the door slam shut, plunging me into complete darkness. _Great job…out of the frying pan…_ I thought, then the lights came on, loud, bell-like sounds announcing more lights. I released the breath I was holding, turned around and got the shock of my life.

Somebody was looking down at me with a very stern expression.

I backed up a step as I saw a very LARGE bust of a man's head and shoulder looking down at me like some hanging judge. Underneath the bust was a red banner with gold letters that read "NO GODS. NO KINGS. ONLY MAN." Oh yeah. That didn't look ominous at all.

I caught sight of a metal plate and looked down. As I read it, something occurred to me. This Jack guy was trying to get HERE. And since I don't think he was trying to kill himself, that means that someone built this place for a reason. That means support. That means food and shelter.

I took off my jacket, hanging it on a light fixture to dry, then I considered. Might be a good idea to look around first before I relaxed and warmed up. I saw a set of stairs going down and followed them, hearing my shoes squish as went down the steps. As I went down, I saw that the chamber under the main one was a dock of some kind, but the craft inside was some kind of submarine. Didn't exactly have a whole lot to it, just one switch for controls, upholstered seats, just big enough to hold eight people with baggage, and a strange box marked "Service Radio".

It was weird and strange, but it was a way out.

I let my clothes dry out, half wondering if anyone was going to come through the doors and catch me in my skivvies. Didn't happen, thank God, but my clothes itched when I put them back on after they dried. I steeled myself, prepared myself for the unknown, walked into the sub and pulled the switch.

Nothing.

Well, THAT was something of a letdown.

I checked it over. By all rights, the thing should've worked. I didn't spend all my time in college at toga parties. Although a lot of the mechanics and electronics in the sub were revolutionary, to say the least, I could still make heads or tails of the basic principles. From the look of it, it worked on external signals, and there was some sort of authorization code it needed to work. Pretty complex stuff.

I sat down after spending hours looking over the sub. My watch was the only thing that let me know that time was passing; the lighthouse had no windows and the doors wouldn't open. Ten hours and I'd barely cracked the surface.

If I'd known how scarce food was going to be, I wouldn't have said no to the peanuts on the plane.

I woke up thirsty as hell and determined to figure this mess out.

I got up and stretched inside the sub. The cushioned seats made for great beds, but this place had lousy room service. I took out the quarter I'd been using as a screwdriver and opened up a panel under the switch. There was a way to bypass the lock, but it was a real puzzle. Hmmm…change the alignment there…replace the…

I stopped. It couldn't be THAT simple, could it?

There was a flow of a fluid going through the system that acted as some kind of conductor. I switched the flow around, re-directed it towards a bypass, then stood up and pulled the switch for the fifty-seventh time, crossing my fingers for the thirty-eighth time.

There was a spark from the panel, then the door behind me closed and I felt the sub shift. Then it dropped into the water and I felt my ears popping. I took a deep breath and walked to one of the seats.

As I waited, the lights dimmed and a screen came down in front of me. An image came on the screen of a stylized version of the lighthouse, then a picture of a man lighting a cigarette, but using a flame from his finger, some chipper music playing. What's more, the picture looked like, well…an advertisement. While I was trying to get my mind around that, the scene changed to a picture of a guy behind a desk, with the words "From The Desk Of Andrew Ryan" to the side.

"I am Andrew Ryan," a recorded voice came, making the words sound like the announcement of someone who thought he was really important, "and I have a question…" I continued to listen as he went on. He didn't like governments or religion much, since they apparently kept making him follow rules he didn't like. He went on about finding a place, or making a place where people like him could live without being held back by rules made by lesser beings. I started feeling a chill creep up my spine as he talked about not being held back by morality. I grew up going to church every Sunday, and the idea about somebody who thought the Holy Trinity was Art, Science and Industry struck me as a very bad idea.

Then the screen rose and that's when I really knew I was no longer on the map.

Through the window of the door, I could see what looked like a city, with skyscrapers and all, but UNDERWATER. I probably looked like a rube as I watched a whale, a WHALE, swim between buildings, schools of fish…

That's when I heard other voices on the radio. New voices, talking about the sub, only they called it a "bathysphere", and something about "splicers" coming. As I watched the bathysphere heading for a dock of some kind, I saw it pass through a series of signs that read, Burma Shave style, "All good things of this earth flow into the city", only as the word "city" lit up, the "y" shorted out and fell off the sign.

Real comforting. I was starting to think I was better off locked in a lighthouse by myself.

As the bathysphere rose, I tried to see what was going on, but the room I was rising into was dark. I could barely make out details, but what I was seeing made me glad I couldn't see everything. Some woman with baling hooks in her hands was eviscerating some guy right in front of me. After dropping the poor guy into the water, she turned to me. I backed up, counting my blessings that I was inside a metal sphere. What was she going to do, force her way in with a couple of hooks?

Then she leaped up on top of the bathysphere. I backed up as noises came from all around the craft, horrible clanging and shrieking noises, then I saw tears in the metal and crimps in the plates. How the hell was a single woman with metal hooks able to peel this bathysphere like an orange?

I was getting ready to need some new pants when the noises stopped and that maniac leaped to the dock in front of the sub, then leaped away into the darkness. I realized that I was hyperventilating and forced myself to calm down.

"Would you kindly pick up that service radio?" came one of the new voices. I figured any help was better than none and I grabbed the radio.

"Who is this?"

"I don't know how you survived that plane crash, but I've never been one to question providence. I'm Atlas, and I aim to keep you alive. Now keep on moving ... we're gonna have to get you to higher ground." The door in front of me opened and I suddenly realized how vulnerable I was in this place. "Take a deep breath and step out of the bathysphere. I won't leave you twisting in the wind," Atlas reassured me.

As I stepped out, I got the feeling that whoever this Atlas guy was, he knew I was here and he could probably see me. I thought about calling out, but the more I looked around, the more I figured that calling attention to myself was bad. The chamber I was in now was huge, with other docks and piled-up luggage nearby, as well as protest signs. "RYAN DOESN'T OWN US" caught my eye. _Looks like Ryan isn't exactly the godsend he thinks he is._

The area I was in looked like a major terminal. The bathyspheres must have pre-set routes, with conductors running them like trains. However, the scheduling boards all showed the bathysphere travel had been cut off.

The area also showed severe disrepair, crumbling supports and vandalism. _This can in no possible way be a good thing…_

"We're gonna need to draw her out of hiding. But you're gonna have to trust me," Atlas said carefully. I took a deep breath and walked closer…then a sudden shriek got my attention and I got a better look at the woman who'd torn the bathysphere up.

And when I did, I wish I hadn't. The woman was wearing some sort of striped jumpsuit, but her face was horribly misshapen, the skin bulging on one side. The snarl on her face didn't improve the look any. She took a step forward, then a bright light illuminated her, startling her and giving me a better look at her. There were lesions on her skin and discolored areas. She looked like her body had decided to declare war on itself.

"How do you like that, sister?" Atlas crowed as a helicopter-like contraption came out from behind me, then I dove for cover as I head machinegun fire. I looked up as the machine fired upon the woman, chasing her up into the darkness. "Now, would you kindly find a crowbar or something? Bloody splicers sealed Johnny in before they...goddamn splicers."

So that was a splicer. "Splicer" must be slang for "crazy whacked-out fugitive from a monster flick". Imagine the joy of discovery, compounded by the knowledge that there was more than one of these things around. "Listen, Atlas…I need you to tell me what's going on," I said into the radio as I looked around for something I could use as a weapon.

"Long story, boyo. I'll tell you what I can."

There was something in his voice, something he wasn't telling me. I didn't let slip I guessed that, since even a half-truth was better than nothing at all. I found a wrench and swung it. Oh yes, this would do nicely.

"What's your name?" Atlas asked.

"The name's Mark."

Silence at the end of the line. "Where you from, Mark?"

"California. Just graduated from college a few years back, was on my way to a new job in Europe when some nutjob hijacked the plane and forced it down."

More silence. "What happened to him?" he asked, his voice trying to sound nonchalant.

"Died in the crash. Flipped out halfway, shot the pilot and co-pilot." I shook my head. "Poor bastard."

More silence. As soon as I heard it, I knew that this guy knew about Jack. The whole thing had been planned. However, the "why" was still a mystery. If this guy was willing to kill a planeload of people just to get Jack here, he'd leave me twisting in the wind, despite his reassurances, if he thought for a moment that I was on to him.

And I wanted out of this half-crazed Atlantis.

"Look…Atlas…I have no idea what's going on. I'm gonna trust you, but I need to rely on you. You're the only friend I've got down here," I added, letting some of the fear I was feeling creep into my voice. Not hard to do, considering my situation. I had to control it, though, and I had to convince Atlas that I trusted him without question.

"It's gonna be all right, Mark, but I need you to help me. Listen - I've got a family. I need to get them out of here. But the splicers have cut me off from them. If you can reach them in Neptune's Bounty, then maybe, just maybe ... I know you must feel like the unluckiest man in the world right now, but you're the only hope I'll ever see my wife and child again. Go to Neptune's Bounty ... find my family ... please."

The hook. There it was. "You help me survive down here, I'll do whatever you say," I said quickly, hoping he'd read desperation instead of just garden-variety trust. I looked at the rubble and used the wrench to knock it away so I could crawl through, barely dodging a burning sofa as I went up the stairs.

As I dodged it, I suddenly heard a voice from above: "I didn't mean to hurt anyone!" I looked up and jumped back, nearly losing my footing on the steps as a man with a bandaged head came from around the corner. He moved in on me. I couldn't tell if he was truly angry or not; his face was losing its firmness and was hanging off his head like a latex mask.

I didn't have a choice. God forgive me, it was either him or me. I just swung that wrench as hard as I could. I hit him in the head and I thought he'd fall, but he just shrugged it off and just kept right on coming with that pipe, trying to bury it in my skull. I had to hit him four more times before he'd fall and stop getting up.

I backed away from him, then I turned away and threw up, spitting up stomach acids. Didn't have any food in my stomach to get rid of, and my throat burned. When the nausea passed, I looked at the blood-covered corpse, then moved past him into the next room. A sign in neon read "PLASMIDS" pointing up stairs past a sign showing what looked like a Norman Rockwell painting, except this one showed happy people throwing lighting, lighting fires, moving things with their minds… It was all so surreal. How was any of this possible?

The only other door out was operated by a switch, but it was damaged. Was nothing easy? I sighed and headed up the stairs, curious to know what this was all about.

It was so cute, it's scary. An innocent looking vending machine from the 1940s, two cartoonish girls flanking it, mushrooms and flowers, all made of steel and tin. On it were the words "Gatherer's Garden". One of the doors on it was open, revealing a metal and glass bottle with a glowing red liquid inside, a syringe next to it. "Atlas, I'm trapped in a room with something called a 'Gatherer's Garden' in it. How do I get out?"

"You're going to need to use a plasmid to get through the door."

"How?"

"Is there a red bottle there you can get to?"

"Uhm….yeah, why?"

"Use the syringe and inject yourself with it."

"…say AGAIN?"

"Trust me."

And there it was. Either take the plunge and let him think I did trust him, or hesitate…and blow my only advantage, the illusion of control over me. _God hates a coward,_ I thought, and injected myself with the witch's brew. There was a burning sensation as it went in, the red liquid going into my bloodstream as if I was injected sulfuric acid. Then the burning changed and the empty syringe dropped from my hands as arcs of blue energy coursed over my arms. It hurt, dear GOD it hurt, and Atlas was saying something to me about my DNA being rewritten and I must have turned and rushed towards the railing, as if I could run from what was infusing itself painfully into every cell of my body...I hit the railing and over, the floor rushing up to meet me...

I woke up, hearing voices. I tried to move, but nothing would respond. Pinocchio's strings were cut.

"This little fish looks like he just had his cherry popped! Wonder if he's got any ADAM on him?"

I had to get up. I don't know what they wanted, but from the blood caking their clothes, I don't think they were going to be satisfied with going through my pockets. I had to get up, but my body wouldn't work. If my body had been allowed to, I'd be shaking like a leaf in a hurricane.

I heard something else then, a faraway sound like a long groan. I didn't know what made it, but whatever it was, it made one of them spin around as if he'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "You hear that? Let's bug!"

"Weak!" his friend spat. "You're a weak chopper!"

The first man ran off, calling back, "This little fish ain't worth toeing with no Big Daddy!"

"Yellow! Always have been!" He didn't sound so secure, then leaned down to me again. "You'll be no better off with the metal daddy, little fish. See you floating in the briney..." Then he took off after his friend. All I could do was lay there, wondering why he was wearing a cat mask...then I felt something closer, great clanking footsteps. If I could've held my breath, I would have. All I could do was lay there, eyes open, waiting as I saw a giant foot come into view...as well as a huge cone, ridged like a corkscrew and OH MY GOD IT WAS A DRILL...

When my vision cleared the next time, I saw the dress, legs and bare feet of a girl. She couldn't have been older than seven. I tried to turn my head to get a better look, but my body's muscles refused to respond. "Look, Mr. Bubbles," she said, but her voice had this reverberating tone, like she was at the opposite end of a long tunnel. "It's an angel. I can see light coming from his belly..."

I exerted every ounce of control I could gather, and only succeeded in shifting my body an inch or so.

"Wait a minute, he's still breathing."

She saw me. She HEARD me. Thank God! I managed a strangled, "...help...me..."

"It's all right," she said soothingly, then her next words chilled me to my very core. "I know he'll be an angel soon." With that, the two walked off. I managed to turn my head to watch them go. She was SKIPPING.

I closed my eyes again.

I have no idea how long I was out this time, but I found strength returning to my body, and I got to my feet, looking around frantically. "You all right, boyo? First time plasmid's a real kick from a mule. But there's nothing like a fistful of lightning, now, is there?"

I looked at my hands. My right hand looked normal enough, but my left...there was electricity coursing around it like my hands were a Jacob's Ladder. "How do I...use it?"

"Use your left hand, hold it out to whatever you want to shock, then think about pushing the charge out of your palm."

I tried it and it worked TOO well, hitting the floor and licking at my feet, making them tingle. I jumped back, then looked at my hand. I suddenly felt tired, drained. I must have some internal battery that I drew the power from..and I suddenly realized what that meant. This energy was finite. "How do I, uh, recharge?"

"You use EVE. Blue glowing hypos. That'll fill you up right."

"And if I run out of EVE?"

"Then getting out of here alive becomes a lot less likely."

"All right, good survival tip, thanks." Feeling the charge stress-testing the nerve endings in my feet told me that even though I had the means to channel Mjolnir didn't make me immune to the effects of being on the receiving end of such a blast. I also felt the change on another level as well, and I remembered the first splicer I ran into, remembering how he looked, what all these plasmids did to him. I'd taken a first step towards ending up like that. Where was the line between power and madness?

I'd seen one of my dorm-mates turn into a junkie back in college. At some point, he said to me, "I can control it. I'm not going to let it control me. I can stop any time I want." I had become disgusted at what he'd become, felt superior because I told myself, "I'll never be someone like that." Now I was looking at the fresh puncture wound in my arm, which was already healing up. I felt the power in my veins, already looking forward to using it again

All it would cost me is a little bit of my soul. How much of that was I going to have left by the time I got out of here?

"Now, to get out of there, you need to shock the door switch, and that'll let you out of the room." I shook my head as Atlas spoke, remembering the first rule of Rapture: survive now, think later. I fired off a charge at the door nearby, delighted to see it cause the door to open, revealing a tunnel beyond made of metal and glass, or something like it that made it easy to see the ocean around without having to worry about little things like "crush depth". Despite my misgivings about the plasmid, I was beginning to envision useful applications for this. I walked through the door, then felt a shudder as I turned to my left.

It was the tail section of the plane. Freed from the rest of the fuselage, it had sunk to the bottom, coming to rest on an outcropping of rock just overlooking the tunnel I'd just entered. The construction of the transparent walls were well-made. I could see the tail section teetering on the edge of the rock, then slide off and fall, moving like a guided missile directly for the tunnel and SMASH into the side, and the ocean began to rush in to fill the void. I felt the freezing cold of the water, the shock of it nearly causing me to pause, then I realized that he who hesitates is fish food. I ran forward, my teeth chattering as I found myself in the tail section again, looking at the red EXIT sign on the right of the hatch as I waded through the water and out the other side, heading down the tunnel. I heard the cracking of the glass over my head and panic gave strength and speed to my legs as I ran past one overworked pressure door to another one that opened for me at the far end.

I ran inside, collapsing as the door behind me closed and sealed shut. I looked up at the door behind me to see the words "AIRLOCK ACTIVE." I felt the cold threaten to rob me of my strength and I forced myself to get up, seeing frost forming on my legs. I beat the cold off, getting to my feet. I had to stay active, stay warm, or my heart would fail as cold blood rushed into it. As I got up, I heard a scraping sound and someone rushed past my vision.

I was wrong. He who hesitates is not fish food. He who hesitates is FUCKED.

I rested in the elevator. From here, I had a wonderful view of some of the architecture of Rapture, including banners and a large sculpture of something called "The Great Chain". I had just killed two splicers, overloading their nervous systems with the Electro Bolt, then beating them with the wrench. I kept telling myself that it was okay, that if I hadn't killed them, they most certainly would've killed me.

That made it acceptable, but it was a far cry from being "okay".

I listened to Atlas over the radio. He said that he was on the other side in a war between the elite of Rapture versus the overlooked and oppressed poor. He told me about his wife, Moira, and his son, Patrick, how he didn't want to fight the war anymore, he just wanted to leave Rapture with them. I couldn't blame him for that; I've only been in Rapture about an hour and already I wanted nothing more to do with the place. But suspecting what I knew about him and that poor bastard who'd died trying to crash a plane in just the right place...things were not adding up. This was a sob story, made to tug at the ol' heartstrings.

But I couldn't let him think that I'd suspected. "Atlas, I promise, I'll get to Neptune's Bounty. But you've got to help me out here."

"Aye." I could hear it in his voice. I'd sold him on the idea of helping to keep me alive, at least long enough, hopefully, to find out the all-important question: WHY? But I knew that someone willing to kill a whole plane-load of people just to get his confederate from Point A to Point B was not going to trust me much, either, and I knew he figured on throwing me to the wolves as soon as it became clear I was no longer useful.

What's more, he was watching me, somehow. Not surprising; any place capable of creating security contraptions like the one that chased that splicer away obviously had the means to create some sort of security cameras as well. That meant they were using some sort of recognition algorithm, a kind of Identify Friend or Foe system.

And that meant that I needed to find a way to make this place recognize me as a citizen.

I thought about bringing it up to Atlas, but I changed my mind. Atlas knew this place better than I did, and if he's as smart as I think he is, he's already working on the problem. I needed to let him think he was in control, that he was smarter than me. If I asked him how he would fix things, he might start thinking that I might be smart enough to figure him out, and the deus ex machina he supplied me would be gone faster than you can say, "Sorry, boyo."

The elevator stopped and I walked out, hearing a woman's voice off to my right. I moved closer and saw a shadow of a woman standing over a baby carriage, singing a variation of "Hush, Little Baby" I hadn't heard before, then hearing her begin to sob, confused, talking to her baby as if it wasn't even there and somehow was. I wondered what I'd do to get past a splicer with an actual child until I took a closer look in the carriage.

The woman was dressed in a dress and hat ten years out of style, her face scarred. She looked every bit the grieving mother, except she wasn't touching a child, or even the corpse of a child, as I'd feared. She was caressing a revolver. Her brain was probably more scarred than her face. I shocked her, then hit her from behind, putting her out of her misery. I picked up the gun as I heard Atlas say, "Plasmids changed everything. They destroyed our bodies, our minds...we couldn't handle it. Best friends butchering one another, babies strangled in cribs. The whole city went to hell."

As he talked, I began to go over the things I'd picked up. Scavenging from the dead splicers and the area around me resulted in finding those blue hypos Atlas told me about, as well as white and red tins, first aid kits that came with some sort of gel. The directions instructed me to squeeze the gel on areas of my body that were damaged, and as I applied the gel, I literally saw the burns and bruises I'd suffered fade away to nothing. It was a miracle, pure and simple.

Problem is, it was beginning to look like I was going to need to repeat this miracle on a regular basis.

I injected another hypo of the blue stuff into my veins, feeling whatever reservoir that fueled this plasmid return to full. "What's this stuff called again?" I asked Atlas.

"It's called 'EVE'," he replied. He sounded a bit preoccupied.

"ADAM? EVE? For someone who hates the idea of God, he sure put in a lot of Biblical references when he named this stuff."

"Not his idea. He didn't discover the stuff." There was something in the way he said it. A sense of pride. That meant...well, I didn't know what that meant, at least, not yet.

I made my way through the Kasimir Restaurant, looking around, seeing decorations, party favors, a large sign in neon proclaiming "HAPPY NEW YEAR 1959". I heard a song playing from somewhere, "If I Didn't Care" by...

I thought about it for a few moments, trying to remember the group. Then I suddenly realized I was in hostile territory populated by hostile psychotic superhumans run by a guy who didn't believe in God or government. Somehow, trying to remember a music group seemed like one of those things better considered once I got out of here and made it to SEA LEVEL.

I encountered three more splicers. Two of them were apparently man and wife, fighting over who would get whatever ADAM they had, then decided to take out their aggressions on me as soon as the husband noticed me. That'll teach me to get involved in a domestic dispute. The third was a woman wearing some sort of striped jumpsuit. Only after I'd shocked her and brained her with my wrench did I notice the massive deformation of her head, like some massive cancerous growth had decided to mate with her head. The entire left side of her head was this mass of...fleshy lesions.

I had to stop for a minute. The worst part was, the bigger shock wasn't this poor woman's appearance.

The bigger shock was how much I...ENJOYED using the Electro Blast.

I sat down, holding my head. The plasmid apparently backed off when I used my hands to touch my own body, which gave me a huge sense of relief. The last thing I wanted was to take a piss and find out just how well urine conducted electricity. The more I used this plasmid, the more I wanted to feel its power. With it, I wasn't just a human anymore. I was Thor, I was Zeus, I was...

NO.

I was suddenly reminded of a book, _Alice In Wonderland._ A scene came up when Alice complained, "But I don't want to go among mad people." The Cheshire Cat said, without remorse, "Oh, you can't help that! We're all mad down here."

I mentally shook myself. "I am NOT...going to go...CRAZY," I said to myself in a low whisper. "I'm only going to use what I NEED to survive long enough to get out of here. That's it. That's all."

"Boyo, you all right?" Atlas said.

"No...but I'll manage." I stood up.

"Good, because you need to see what's in the next room. It's important."

I nodded, heading through the hole in the bathroom to an area overlooking what appeared to be a small stage. "Would you kindly lower your weapon for a minute? Now it not the time to be looking hostile." I lowered the wrench and moved over the stage using the framework holding up the stage lights. As I did, I saw another one of those creepy little girls, dressed in a dirty little dress. She was singing and jabbing a corpse with something that looked like an unhealthy melding of a syringe, a gas station nozzle and a baby bottle. Atlas described her as a "Little Sister", a harmless child turned into a monster for the sole purpose of gathering ADAM. As I moved down the stairs nearby, I saw the doors open through the reinforced window and saw another splicer enter the room.

I knew these splicers wanted ADAM, and if this girl-thing was a gatherer...

I went to the window, looking for a means to get in and take that splicer out. He'd rip here into pieces to get the ADAM he wanted. I wanted to scream at her, tell her to run, but as it turned out, I never needed to worry.

She let out a scream and an answering bellow was heard from above. I looked up to see a massive humanoid drop down, dressed in something like a deep diving suit, only this thing was a hulk. It had a bulbous head with small lights all over it, currently blazing red, with a drill for a right arm. The splicer started firing its pistol at the thing, but he might as well have used spitballs to stop a runaway freight train. The creature ignored the bullets, smacking the splicer into the back wall, then ramming the spinning drill through his midsection. As if that wasn't bad enough, it grabbed the splicer's head and slammed it against the reinforced glass, breaking through on the third hit. The splicer's body hung halfway through the glass as the monster turned back to the little girl, reaching out a hand as the Little Sister smiled and took the hand, happily walking away.

"What...the HELL...?"

"That's the Big Daddy. She gathers the ADAM. He keeps her safe," Atlas answered. "Now, would you kindly find a Pneumo?"

"Why?"

"I've got something here that'll keep you from getting cut down by the first security bot you see."

"Is it something I'm going to need to inject?"

"Yeah. Just find a Pneumo. Once you get there, I'll send it your way."

"What does it do?"

"It's a gene tonic called 'SportBoost'. It'll make you stronger and faster, but most importantly, it contains ADAM from another person. Once it rewrites your genetics, it'll mark you as someone who belongs here. It won't keep you from being attacked by splicers or invisible to Andrew Ryan's eyes and ears, but it will keep you from being casually gunned down."

I nodded, but was instantly suspicious. What if it was more than that? Did he suspect me? Would the plasmid enable him to take control over me, or worse, give him the means to kill me with a word? What could he do with a plasmid or gene tonic? What COULDN'T he do?

I looked around from the inside of the Footlight Theater, wondering if I wouldn't be better off just waiting here. It would be easy. Just wait here for the next splicer to come along and...

I shook my head. NO. NO, NO, NO. Whatever happened, I was NOT going to die like some whimpering animal in the dark. I was not going to curl up and die.

I was getting out of this whacked-out excuse for Atlantis and I was going to leave it behind...or die trying.

**TO BE CONTINUED...**


	2. Chapter 2

BIOSHOCK: Right Place, Right Time...Wrong Guy, Part II

By C. Mage

I didn't have much time to figure out what to do next. After meeting the maniacs that run the asylum here, I was eager to leave the so-called "Welcome Center". I felt about as welcome as an IRS audit. I crept through the Welcome Center to the entrance of the Metro, scared that every shadow held an armed psychopath lurking inside, ready to disembowel me. What made it truly shocking is that these people were dressed like normal passers-by, just…distorted. Horribly distorted.

Please, God, let there be sane people where I'm going.

"Atlas, where am I going?" I whispered into the service radio.

"Neptune's Bounty. You need to get into Fontaine's Fisheries. Hidden there is a secret submarine dock. I'll meet you there with my family, and we'll all get out of here."

I wanted to ask him why he and his family didn't leave before I arrived here, but I had a feeling any uncomfortable questions would result in him withdrawing his help. Worse yet, he might decide to use me as a decoy while he and his family made it to safety. Even so, I wasn't sure that was his plan already.

"All right…coming up on the entrance." I hefted the pistol from the baby carriage. "I'm twenty yards…"

A gate slid shut quickly over the entrance, and something was emerging from the floor behind the gate. It looked like some kind of dispenser on a chair HOLY…!

All coherent through from that point on went away, replaced by gut instinct. I backpedaled just in time to see a gout of flame come from the improvised turret in front of me. A second or two of delay, I would've been barbequed in my own juices! As I looked for something that might turn it off, red lights started flashing. "It's Ryan! Goddamn Andrew Ryan! He's found us! Dammit! He's shut all access to Neptune…wait, there's another way to get there. Head to Medical! What are you waiting for? GO!"

I had no choice but to turn in the opposite direction, heading for the Medical Pavilion. As I did, I caught sight of a banner hung to my right, with the words, "ALTRUISM IS THE ROOT OF ALL WICKEDNESS" emblazoned in gold. "Great. Nice to know that when everyone decided to go crazy, 'Crazy' was within walking distance…!" I ran through the only way out, heading to a pressure door, and turned the wheel that would allow me to escape.

It wouldn't turn. "ATLAS, I'm twisting in the wind, here!"

"You're trapped! Gonna try to override the exit from here!"

I looked around, suddenly feeling very alone. The lights went out for a few moments, then the lights came on, only the source was a large TV screen showing a message in black and white, "PLEASE STAND BY." It vanished a short time later, replaced by a picture of a man's face, partially obscured by the brim of his hat. "SO," a voice boomed out from the loudspeakers, "tell me, 'friend', which one of the bitches sent you? Was it the LGB wolf, or the CIA jackal? Here's the news: Rapture isn't some sunken ship for you to plunder, and Andrew Ryan isn't some giddy socialite who can be slapped around by government muscle."

I was about to ask him what about ME implied I was anyone's "muscle" when I heard the sounds of groaning, and voices somewhere I couldn't see. Rapture's residents were all around me, though I couldn't see them, what I heard made my skin crawl. Ryan continued on. "And with that, farewell, or 'das vadinya', whichever you prefer." The screen went back to the standby page.

I took a breath, then heard people yelling. Screaming. They pushed up against the reinforced window around the chamber I was in, beating on it with their fists and pipes. It sounded like there were dozens of them out there. A few hundred.

And the reinforced window was starting to crack and give way.

Just when I was starting to wonder how quickly it would be over, the wheel on the door behind me spun as the door opened. "I got it! Get out of there! Get out NOW!" He didn't need to tell ME twice. I ran through the door, closing it behind me, then opened the door on the other side. I was in some kind of airlock. As the door on the other side opened, I saw a tunnel made of clear material. Wasn't glass. Must've been a very thick clear plastic.

At the moment, I didn't care. I ran as if the devil and his legions were hot on my trail…which wasn't far from the truth. As I ran, I heard Atlas telling me, "And now you've met Andrew Ryan, the bloody king of Rapture." Yeah, "bloody" was the word for it. "Now, find your way to a place called, 'Emergency Access'."

I wanted to tell him that I understood; that I figured out there must've been another way to get to where I needed to go. Only problem was, I wasn't sure how much he wanted, or didn't want, me to know. So until opportunity presents itself, best to sound dumb and look lucky.

I got to the airlock and opened it, revealing a poster of a smiling beauty hanging on a dirty wall, talking about "Steinman's Cosmetic Enhancement". Not a good sign. There was other furniture in the foyer, all dirty, ragged in some places, but when I turned right, I saw a large sign that read "MEDICAL PAVILION" in glowing neon, a popular method of promotion around here. Hanging crooked.

Great. Calling Dr. Kill-Patient.

The adrenaline was still pumping through my system, but I knew enough about biology to know that at one point, I'd run out and my body would make me PAY for all this excitement and running around. I had to find a safe place to rest, or I wouldn't need to worry about the splicers killing me, the fear of them would be enough.

I raised my left hand, seeing blue lightning literally coursing through my veins. And there was THIS little chestnut. This would certainly help for the short term, but what about the long term?

Looking around Rapture was giving me the horrible feeling I was already seeing the long-term effects.

I suddenly heard a female voice and spun around, looking for another attack, but it was an announcer of the PA system, saying "parasites hate three things, free markets, free will and free men." Man, but they lay it on thick here. I moved forward, then saw a doctor and a nurse come out on a balcony overlooking the foyer. The nurse was packing a pistol and the doc had traded in his scalpel for a pipe. They turned, saw me, and for a brief moment, nobody moved. Then the nurse screamed, "YOU PEOPLE WILL NEVER AMOUNT TO ANYTHING!" and charged down the stairs.

Right. More murderous psychopaths. Was EVERYONE in this fishbowl completely out of their minds? Didn't have much time to ponder that, pulling the pistol up and firing, backing away. The nurse took three shots before going down, but not before she put one into my right shoulder, pain blossoming there and taking root. I was running low on bullets, and then I remembered the electricity in my hands. The doctor was almost on me when I threw a bolt of lightning at him, shocking him where he stood and short-circuiting his nervous system. It didn't look like it would kill him, and I only had two bullets left. I knew I had to save one for myself, so I aimed and put a round into his skull. THAT did the trick.

I looked down at the two bodies. I didn't feel sick like I did before. Not sure if that was good or bad, so I checked them both. More bullets, and a metal container colored white and red. Inside were bandages, a tube of some milky gel and a syringe filled with a green substance. I took a closer look and found instructions on the lid of the tin. Inject the fluid into the wound, spread the gel on the wound, bandage it up. I looked again. That was it. No special conditions, nothing.

I looked down at the bleeding wound in my shoulder. Not much choice. I uncapped the syringe while a part of me screamed, "Are you INSANE? What if you have some kind of reaction? That could be poisonous, for all you know!"

My answer back to that part of my noggin was a rapid, "I couldn't POSSIBLY be that lucky," and injected the wound with the stuff.

My whole shoulder went numb. Wow, this stuff worked fast. I smeared as much of the gel as I could over it, then saw something that blew my mind. The bullet was actually forced out of the wound, dropping to the floor. I squeezed the rest of the gel on, and wrapped the gauze bandage around it. No pain at all, just a very faint itchy sensation.

I hoped to God the cure wasn't worse than the disease. From what I've seen so far in the Medical Pavilion, the whole, "first do no harm" thing seems to have been forgotten. All right. Enough complaining about the situation.

I checked the area, finding money, ammunition, and another one of those self-contained audio recorder/playback devices. Found a couple of them in the Welcome Center, looked pretty sophisticated. I hunkered down behind the reception desk where I'd found it and hit Play on the first one I found.

It started up and I heard sounds of a party going on. I heard some jazz song, but I didn't recognize the tune. Then a woman's voice. "Another New Year's, another night alone. I'm out, and you're stuck in Hephaestus, working. Imagine my surprise. I just guess I'll have another drink... here's a toast to Diane McClintock, silliest girl in Rapture. Silly enough to fall in love with Andrew Ryan, silly enough to…"

There was the sound of an explosion, screaming, people yelling. "Long live Atlas!" and "Death to Ryan!" and then Diane was talking again. "What...what happened...I'm bleeding...oh, God...what's happening..."

The audio stopped. I sat there, and my shoulder wasn't the only thing that was numb. The damaged signs, the masks that these splicers were wearing. It all started on New Year's Eve, 1959.

I played the next one, some bull about a damaged wall. The one I just picked up was from the same person, Diane. "Dr. Steinman said he'd release me today. Ryan didn't come to see me since the New Year's attack. Not once. But Dr. Steinman was very attentive. He told me that once the scar tissue was gone, he was going to fix me right up. Make me prettier than any girl I've ever seen. He's sweet all right...and so interested in my case!" Hope. Even down here. Diane had the right idea, all right, and I wasn't about to forget it anytime soon. I'll defend myself from people trying to kill me. If they wanted a war, well, then I was going to give them one.

That sounded so much better in my head before I realized that I was horribly outmanned and outgunned.

I got up, reloaded and decided to do some more exploring.

Thirty minutes had gone by. So much can happen in thirty minutes.

I'd discovered that the method used for getting down here in the bathysphere was similar for making some adjustments to the local machinery. I found an object with a set of dual propellers next to a display for "security bots" and got it working, finding out that the system had a very sophisticated system for identifying who was friendly and who wasn't. The thought of trying to subvert the system itself was daunting until I realized that I didn't have to change the system, I just had to change one part of it, switching "friendly" to "foe". Once I figured out to do that, the system came on, and the bot lifted into the air, following me around like a puppy.

A heavily-armed puppy.

I found one of those turrets, then considered how to even get close to it without being shot. The solution was literally in the palm of my hand. After zapping it, I ran up to it to examine it. It was resetting itself, so I didn't have a lot of time. However, I did have a lot of practice. I switched it over and the red light at the top turned green. Now it just cycled back and forth. I found another one, then a couple of the cameras, doing the same to them.

Ten minutes of work and patience, and I could finally breathe. Anyone trying to sneak up on me or try to wish me harm was gonna find out how it felt to be on the wrong end of a firing squad.

Well, it was nice while it lasted. Just when I thought I was going to be able to make it through this without further issue, I find out that any attempt to get out of this particular wing of this loony bin requires one tiny little item. The key to this part of the city. Turned out the way out required the key of one Dr. J. S. Steinman, the head of the Medical Pavilion, and based on what Atlas informed me about him, the good doctor ain't that good no more. In fact, Atlas warned me that Steinman might be the biggest loony in this bin. "He's the one what runs this place. But I don't expect him to hand it to you out of the milk of human kindness. Steinman ain't that kind, and frankly, I'm not even sure he's still human."

"Any good news you can provide?"

"Well, boyo, there's ways and then there's ways. I can direct you to a couple of new plasmids that'll make things easier for you. Incinerate, and Telekinesis."

"Let me guess. Throw fireballs and move things with my mind."

"Miracles of ADAM, friend."

"And considering how other users of these wonderful products are misshapen and stark raving mad, why would I even CONSIDER getting those plasmids?"

"Because you'll need them. For one thing, there are many places here that are frozen over, and you'll need Incinerate to melt the ice away. Second, you're going to find that Steinman loves throwing things that go BOOM. Unless you got the reflexes of a cat on coffee, you'll need something to protect yourself, and throwing them back has a happier ending than just catching them. Get me?"

"So it's either a slow death or a quick one."

"There's something else to shoot for. You could beat Irish Sweepstakes odds and be one of those blessed few who's immune to the debilitating effects of ADAM cellular breakdown…or at least resistant. You're not from here, so there's a chance."

_Yeah, a chance that you're stringing me along until I do what you want me to do._ "All right, you win. Just show me where I can get these things."

"Will do. Just be careful. I've got a feeling I'm not the only one interested in your welfare."

"What makes you say that?"

"Ryan's still on the lookout for you. He knows you're not dead yet, but he's not sure where you are. And there's someone else looking in on you, and it ain't me OR Ryan. Whoever it is, it's a pretty safe bet they're taking an interest in you because they think you can be an asset they can exploit."

_Whereas you're just helping me out of the goodness of your heart, right?_ "Right, watch out for anyone trying to take advantage of me."

"…not sure I care for your insinuations, boyo."

"Odd. Didn't think I was making any."

"I'm going to chalk this up to the stress of what you're having to do, but get this straight: I am not the enemy here. You and me? We're on the same side."

_Right. Like pawns and kings._ "Sorry…it's just that, twenty-four hours ago, all this would've been science-fiction to me, like something Ray Bradbury would write. Now, not only am I living it, but it's trying to make me dead."

He waited just the right amount of time to say, "You're right. I know I'm putting a lot on you. I've spent years dealing with this, but it's your first day. It's hard to remember what things were like before I came to Rapture."

"Then let's just say we've said our mea culpas and get out of here." That's it, let him think I'm giving him an out.

"Agreed, boyo. Now, the first thing you need to do is get the Incinerate…"

"Actually, the first thing I need to do is get to a lab."

"What for?"

"You're saying I need Incinerate in order to use heat to get past obstacles. Well, before I start untwisting my genetic code again, I want to make sure there isn't another way to do it." I looked around. "With all these pipes and other fittings, there has to be a machine shop around here somewhere. And machine shops come with acetylene torches."

"And what are you going to do about Steinman?"

"What I have to. But before I start loading up on stuff that can make my skin melt off, I'm going to use what I already have."

The machine shop was further on, and as it turned out, was close to some of the other medical labs on this level, giving me ample supplies to make an improvised flamethrower. I added some wiring to a hand grip so I could use the electricity I now wielded to cause an ignition spark. After a brief test or two while I adjusted the heat output, I pronounced my new weapon a success. In addition to a modified tommy-gun, I also found some new types of ammunition, armor-piercing and anti-personnel rounds. These guys had a regular arms race going on.

Thus armed, I set about my task.

It made sense that I would need to get better equipped soon. Only the sick, the truly sick, would be trapped in here with the mad doctor, so it made sense that things would get tougher once I left. Having better weapons would come in handy all right; normal bullets were starting to lose their effectiveness against these splicers. I also found containers of what seem to be called, "Gene Tonics", which, if acted as advertised on the bottles, provided different boosts to mind and body.

I took them, but I didn't use them. I may have been desperate, but I'm not THAT desperate. Yet.

I explored the rest of the Pavilion, finding more of the same. Crazed splicers, with no sense of tactics, looking around and charging me as soon as they saw me, even leaping through the air to try and get me. With my new weaponry, taking them out was getting easier…both physically and emotionally. Some of them even died looking at me with grateful expressions on their faces.

Some of them, however, were really sneaky.

I came to one area near a dental office and saw a shotgun with a dead splicer right out in the middle of the floor. Even the lights in the room were angled to focus on it. I just knew as soon as I picked it up, I was going to find myself in the middle of a meat grinder, so I looked around and found my answer: an area of hallway that was flooded. I looked around, faced the hallway, and picked up the shotgun.

As expected, the lights went out.

I ran to the hallway, splashed through it until I reached a sofa, then climbed up on it as high as I could go, then waited. Sure enough, I heard yelling as a group of splicers chased after me. I waited until I heard splashing, then threw lightning at the water until their voices went away.

I ignored the nagging feelings in my head about how good it felt to take them out, or the disgust at having to loot their corpses for supplies. I couldn't afford to let it get to me, not here. This was no place to lose it, out here in the open. Especially after finding more Audiovoxes and hearing how Dr. Steinman was going completely around the bend, ranting about "Aphrodite" and spouting off about how beauty was no longer an option, but a mandatory right, thanks to ADAM.

I'm about to have to get a key from a complete psycho. My life was officially in the crapper, waiting for someone to flush.

I made my way to the appropriately-named Steinman's Aesthetic Ideals, finding the doc rummaging around, saying to himself, "Why do we have two eyes? Is there some law that say we must? Two arms, two legs, two ears, two breasts..." As soon as he saw me, though, he clearly wasn't interested in "taking walk-in appointments" and ran through a doorway, screaming and blowing up a sign above the door and blocking it with debris. Before I could even fathom this, another doctor came out on a balcony overlooking the entrance to Steinman's sanctum, trying to perform some reconstructive surgery on me with explosives. As I hid behind a concrete wall, I heard Atlas say, "Still think you can do without Telekinesis?"

"I'm SORRY," I said with what I hoped was a sarcastic tone, "but Mark isn't here right now, but if you'd like to leave a message, just wait for the goddam beep!"

"Well, if you've got a better idea, now would be a good time, innit?"

"I'm THINKING." I looked down the hallway, seeing the discarded medical equipment, the gurney, the wheelchair, the...

I smiled as my eyes fell upon the solution. "I've got an idea." Then I moved, put a round of anti-personnel pistol ammo into Dr. Warren Spahn and dropped him like a bad habit. Then I went back up the hallway I used to get here and looked for what I needed. Thankfully, I didn't have to go far. "Know what the big problem is, Atlas?"

"I'm all ears, boyo."

"People got so used to using plasmids to do what they wanted to do…they forgot that there were still non-plasmid ways to do things." I heaved the gas tank into place, then backed up behind the barrier I'd used earlier and took careful aim with the pistol, then fired.

A hole appeared in the tank, and a hissing noise could be heard. Then I brought up the shotgun, loaded with an "electric buck" round, then fired.

THAT did it. I felt the blast wave and pulled back before the blast cleared the debris, not to mention my sinuses. My ears were ringing a bit, but I was none the worse, and the way was clear to get to Steinman. Of course, knowing him, he would likely not be happy to see me, based on all the pictures I'd seen all around the pavilion, pieced-together pictures of women he thought were perfection. Patchwork people, Picasso paintings brought to life. And if the people here were any indication, he was likely to be deeply insane and heavily armed.

I moved deeper into Aesthetic Ideals, founding a couple of traps laid, mechanical ones. Firing a few electrical bolts put them to sleep and a few minutes with their innards put them to work for me, and scavenging the area found some more resources, a couple Audiovoxes and some first aid kits. I was beginning to think I needed a knapsack before I heard the yelling. Splicers were coming. I hunkered down behind one of the desks and simply waited for the shooting to stop. Between the hacked turret and a hacked security camera, the splicers trying to ambush me got ambushed in return, and I picked up a hacked security drone in the bargain. I was now free to make my appointment with Steinman.

Lucky me.

As soon as I entered his personal home, I could hear him, ranting as he worked on a female splicer lying on an operating table. I watched from the observation chamber, took one look at what he was doing to her and almost threw up again. "What can I do with this one, Aphrodite? She…won't…stay…still! I want to make them beautiful, but they always turn out wrong! That one, too fat! This one, too tall! This one, too symmetrical! And now..." He stopped as he looked at me. I'd been so horrified by what he was doing that I wasn't focusing on staying hidden. "What's this, Goddess? An intruder?! He's ugly! Ugly! Ugly! UGLYYYYYYYY!"

Stupid, stupid, STUPID! I took cover as the bot recognized Steinman as a threat and went out after him. Judging from the amount of damage he could soak up, that bot wasn't going to do the trick. Okay, think, goddammit, THINK. First step, find your assets. I took a deep breath, then ran out and skirted around the sides as Steinman and my bot fought it out. The bot was already spewing smoke and flame from one side, so I didn't have a lot of time. More gas tanks, spilled fluids, both blood and oil, a safe and a health station in an area flooded with frigid water.

Okay, I had a plan. It wasn't a GREAT plan.

After I'd made my preparations, I looked around and listened. No more gunfire. Maybe my bot had taken Steinman out?

That's when the bullet hit me in the side, like someone shoving a red-hot poker between my ribs. Only the cold of the water I was standing in numbed my body so I didn't pass out from the pain. Through the haze I heard Steinman yelling, "We're not finished! Not finished!"

I turned and ran in the opposite direction, climbing the steps out of the water, then turned and let him have it with some handheld lightning. Do NOT pass out, DO NOT PASS OUT, pass out and you're next on the operating table…!

He turned back, heading for the health station and activating it to heal himself back up. What he got was a cloud full of poison smacking him in the face. I took a lot more satisfaction then I probably should have watching him fall, then limped over to the hacked health station myself to use it on myself. It bathed me in a cloud of vapor and I breathed it in, feeling the chemical compounds rejuvenate and heal my body completely. And there were actually people that wondered how much use I'd get out of my engineering degrees. If I survived this, I'd be able to say that those skills actually saved my life.

I searched Steinman and found empty medical kits, some anti-personnel ammo, and his KEY. "Atlas, I got it. I got his key."

"You killed him? Well, boyo, I'm officially impressed. It was time somebody took care of that sick bastard. Head for Emergency Access. I'm working my way to the backside of Port Nepture meself. We'll get there soon enough."

I nodded, then walked over to check on the woman on the table. She was dead, thank God. After what he did to her, death was a mercy. I found something else on her, a recording. My morbid curiosity was acting up and I played it.

Steinman: "Four-oh silk and...done."

Nurse: "The nose looks terrific, Doctor Steinman ...Doctor?"

Steinman: "You know, looking at her now, I didn't realize how much her face…_sags_. Scalpel."

Nurse: "Excuse me?"

Steinman: "Scalpel!"

Nurse: "Uh, doctor, she's not booked for a face lift..."

Steinman: "Let's just come in here and..." *sounds of Steinman whistling*

Nurse: "Doctor, stop cutting. Doctor, stop cutting...!" *sound of an intercom button* "Get me the chief of surgery! Get me the chief of surgery NOW!"

I stood there, stunned. I have to get out of this god-forsaken place…but first, I wanted to meet this Andrew Ryan.

And kick his balls so far up into his head, he'll be able to hear himself making sperm.

I made my way back, after finding more splicers that had come to kill me, only to find themselves stuck between a turret and a hard place. I checked them for supplies, then headed back down the hall and found it had become a crude wall instead. "Tunnel collapse," Atlas explained. "Welcome to Rapture, the world's fastest-growing pile of junk." I found another tunnel, but I don't know how many more surprises I'll be able to take-

BOOM!

I jerked back, saying, "GAHHH!" or something equally intelligent as one of those "Big Daddies" flew through the glass wall of the corridor in front of me. From the look of it, for once, he was on the receiving end. I moved closer, then entered the room, seeing a splicer going after one of those weird little girls.

"It's a Little One…now's your chance to get some ADAM." I ignored Atlas, moving closer. As I got a closer look at her, I felt a stab in my heart as I realized what she was, someone's child, WARPED into this…thing.

As the splicer got closer to her, I raised my pistol, but then I heard gunshots as someone put two into the splicer's head. I looked up to see a woman, tall, thin, with straggly hair. "Stay away from her," she commanded, levelling the gun at me. "Or it will be you who will be shot next!"

"Easy now, doctor, he's just looking for a wee bit of ADAM, just enough to get by…" Looks like I'm not the only person Atlas can talk to, and she obviously knows of him.

"I'll not have him hurt my Little Ones!" she said, that same voice of command. It took me a few to recognize it, the sound of Mama Bear protecting her cubs.

"It's okay lad, that's not a child, not anymore it ain't. Dr. Tenenbaum saw to that."

I turned to look at the Little Sister. It was backing away from me, scared out of her mind. Probably saw me no different than the splicer that wanted to cut her open to get at what he wanted…

"_Bitte_, do not hurt her. Have you no heart?" she pleaded.

"Aye, that's a pretty sermon coming from the ghoul who cooked up them creatures in the first place. Took fine little girls and turned them into that, didn't you? Listen to me, boyo, you won't survive without the ADAM those THINGS are carrying. Are you prepared to trade your life, the lives of my wife and child for Tenenbaum's little Frankensteins?"

As Atlas went on and on, I walked closer to the Little Sister. She had ADAM, and that was the currency of this place. She was helpless, vulnerable…and all I had to do to get it was…rip some disgusting slug out of a little girl's body.

NO. I am not that person, I am not that THING.

I turned back to Dr. Tenenbaum. "Can you change them back?"

She nodded. "There is another way." She threw me a tonic jar with a glowing red substance within it. I caught on the fly and looked at it, then up at Dr. Tenenbaum. "Use that, and it will free them from their torment. I will make it worth your while, somehow."

"How does it work?"

"Your skin will secrete a substance that, when it makes contact with one of my Little Ones, will excise the slug within her. When she coughs it up, you can take what ADAM you can. It will not be as much as you could've…"

"To Hell with the ADAM! Will the GIRL be all right?"

Dr. Tenenbaum stared at me as if I suddenly shat an elephant. "She will recover," she said, after a moment.

I popped the top and drank every drop. It burned going down, and I felt like I was going to throw it back up, but anything was better than the alternative. After I was sure I wasn't going to puke up something that would try and make a break for freedom, I walked over to the girl and reached for her. She pulled away from me, whimpering and crying. Finally, I made a grab for her, lifting her up. She still struggled, pushing me away, and I put my hand on her cheek.

Her skin began to glow, veins of light traveling from where my hand touched her, then there was a flash. I blinked, and there was the sound of something wet hitting the floor. My vision cleared as I heard a voice, one that wasn't sounding alien. "Thank you, mister." She was still wearing her dirty dress, barefoot, but her skin was normal and she had brown eyes.

She was _beautiful._ I nearly wept when I saw her. For once, something happened in this wretched place that wasn't HORRIFYING. I watched as she ran for the vent, climbing up and inside. "Is she…going to be all right?"

"She will be, now."

I turned back to Dr. Tenenbaum, but she was gone. I picked up the slug, then looked around for a container. Fortunately, it's easy to find specimen jars in a medical lab. After squeezing the ADAM out of the thing and tossing it away, I headed for Emergency Access, hoping that I could at least get to Fontaine's Fisheries without too much excitement.

I should really stop doing that, asking for things I can't get.

"What is your name?" Tenenbaum.

I picked up the radio. "I'm Nobody."

"Shades of Ulysses?"

I allowed myself a small smile. "Not that big a stretch. I'm on a voyage, between devils and the deep blue sea." I kept it light, since it was clear Atlas could tune in on me. "I'm just someone dumb enough to try to get someplace I shouldn't have gone. All things considered, I think I would've preferred dying of exposure on a deserted island in the middle of the ocean."

"I do not think this is coincidence."

"Yeah, I'm with Einstein on that one. Universe doesn't strike me as being that lazy."

"I need your help."

"The line for THAT forms at the left."

"You are bitter."

"Really?" I checked the corridors ahead. "Am I that transparent? Look, doc, I don't know if you've figured it out yet, but I am no soldier. I'm not a professional killer, or hit man, or spy, or anything that Ryan accuses me of. I am not cut out for this."

"Perhaps. But while you are not many things, what you are is important."

"And what am I?"

"A good man, and a fast learner."

I took cover, getting closer to the hallway back to the Pavilion proper. "What do you want from me?"

"I want to save my Little Ones, but too many of them are in places I cannot reach. I need your help to cure them, send them home...but it will not be easy, and it will be dangerous."

"As opposed to all the not-life-threatening things like hotwiring my DNA and learning how to shoot homicidal superhumans?"

"To rescue the Little Ones, you must first deal with their protectors."

"The Big Daddies." I sighed. This deal was getting worse all the time. Still, the thought of all those girls, doomed to an existence of nothing more than being mutagenic slime factories... "I'll do what I can. I can't make any promises. Hell, I don't know if I'll live to get to the Fisheries."

"I have closed off many of the doors that lead from the clinic where the Little Ones were born…"

"MADE."

"…but I cannot do anything about the ones already performing their rounds. It is ingrained into their minds, what they must do. Before you leave, there is one more Little One in the Medical Pavilion."

"All right. I'll do my best," I said with a groan, wishing my body felt as heroic as those words. The need for those plasmids were trying to make itself heard once more, and I knew that, before long, that ADAM in my possession was going to start looking downright necessary.

I had to figure out another way.

I wish I could say I came up with a plan before I ran into the Big Daddy with his "ward" in the Medical Pavilion. With all the things I was wishing at this point, what's one more? And the problem was, he was looking pretty intimidating. Figure that Ryan wouldn't keep using these things if they weren't cost-effective, so I couldn't underestimate it.

So I kept an eye on it.

Fortunately, the hacked turrets and cameras made for a bumper crop of bodies, and that meant I could use it to lead the girl where I wanted her to go, which meant I could lead him. A drawn-out fight was out of the question. I'd be hamburger in the time it would take me to say, "bad idea". I had to damage the Daddy in a way that wouldn't hurt the girl. I knew from the audio log that the Little Sister's body was capable of recovering from massive amounts of damage, but that didn't make the idea of CAUSING that damage any easier to swallow.

Then I found it. I had to work fast and it wouldn't be easy, but if it worked, I could save the girl. The plan was simple: lug every gas tank I could find, set it in a hallway that was away from a body where the girl could…gather, then lure the Big Daddy to the tanks, hit the lug with as much voltage from my fingers as I could muster, then use my gun to set off the tanks. The Big Daddy would find out the wonders of being in an enclosed space while explosions were going off, and the girl would be fine. Then I could cure her, send her on her way, then head for Emergency Access.

It was a perfect plan. Which should've been my first clue on how it could go wrong…

To be continued…


	3. Chapter 3

BIOSHOCK: Right Place, Right Time…Wrong Guy, Part III

By C. Mage

I saw it coming. Could've heard it coming if it wasn't for my heart hammering in my chest and my ears. I had it planned, and I didn't see how it could go wrong. Probably the only reason I went ahead with it in the first place.

I took a deep breath…then a second…then a third. Then I decided to stop before I began to hyperventilate. I need to do this before I talked myself out of it.

I fired the first shot right at its head, and saw the lights of its eyes turn red. Everything from that point on just…HAPPENED. I waited for it to reach the tanks, then fired a bolt of lightning at it to stop it in its tracks.

It didn't stop, just slowed down. By the time I got the shotgun out, it was already past the tanks. I froze. A part of my brain started shrieking at me, "RUN, YOU IDIOT!" but I couldn't move. I was about to be squashed like an insect.

"MOVE!" came a female voice from my radio, and my muscles unfroze.

I jumped to the side, the Big Daddy charging past me. The monster may have had the strength of a freight train, but he turned about as quickly. As he slammed into the wall behind me, I scrambled to my feet. The only other way to go was back down the corridor past the tanks to the other end, and that hallway suddenly looked a lot darker.

I heard a crunching sound. The Big Daddy had pulled himself loose.

I ran down the corridor and came out the other end, the roar of the Big Daddy following me. I managed to turn the corner without skidding on the floor, then barreled past the Little Sister, turned and…

BANG.

The explosion pushed me off my feet, and I landed on my rear. The shotgun had flown out of my hands. Apart from my plasmid, I was defenseless, and I knew it. I closed my eyes for a few seconds. I waited for what would happen next, listening in mortal terror...

No sound...then...crying.

I opened my eyes to see the girl kneeling next to the Big Daddy. She was bawling her eyes out. To her, it wasn't some monster, it was…"Mr. Bubbles." I walked over to her, ignoring her fear. I had to, it wasn't real. Just something cooked up in a lab somewhere. "Conditioning," they called it. What I call it shouldn't be repeated in Polite Company.

When I picked her up, I felt her struggling, right up to when I touched her skin. Her whole body seemed to glow. I set her down, watched her puke up the slug. When her eyes looked up at me, they were blue. Blue eyes, golden hair. She smiled at me. "Thank you, mister."

By the time I came to my senses and picked up my shotgun, she was gone, probably through one of those vents. I collected the ADAM, that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach making itself known again. I kept thinking of seeing junkies, remembering how the splicers acted. There was a feeling, faint, but still there…felt like some monster slowly gnawing away at my guts.

I just couldn't get it out of my head.

Then, a blessed distraction. Even if it WAS from Atlas. "You done on your mission o' mercy then? My family and I need your help, you know."

"I'm heading there now, Atlas. I've got Steinman's key."

"I know." There was a pause, just the right amount of time before saying, "Sorry about the cross words, boyo. But you can see how badly I want to get out of here, and I've got a family to think of."

_Yeah. So you keep telling me._ "I'll contact you again once I reach this Neptune's Bounty." I headed back to the Emergency Access door, thinking about what he'd said. EVERYTHING he said. You see, although I'm an engineer by trade, I do have hobbies. And one of those hobbies was mystery stories. Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammet, Arthur Conan Doyle. I went through their books again and again, getting past the literary tricks to find the clues within, and right now, I needed something that would give me an inside track on Atlas…

"Hello?"

It was the same voice telling me to move during the fight with the Big Daddy, so I guessed I owed her the time of day at least. "Who are you?"

"I can't say. Too many people listening. But I need your help."

I laughed. "Well, this is definitely the month for party lines and requests."

"I overheard what you promised Tenenbaum. That you'd help the Little Sisters, if you could. And considering you nearly blew up half the Medical Pavilion to save one, I don't have to ask if you're committed to this."

"You got me. I'm a dyed-in-the-wool sucker."

"No. You're not. One of those Little Sisters used to be a girl named Sally. I need your help to find her."

"Why don't you talk to Tenenbaum? She seems to be an authority."

"She prefers her privacy. Yet she talked to you. What's your name?"

"Mark. Mark Jacobs. If you can't tell me what your real name is, what should I call you?"

"…'Songbird'. That name will do as well as any."

"I'm starting to think I'm the only one in this burg going by their real name. So you want my help finding this little Sister. Well, I need help staying alive." I held up a hand, feeling the energy course through it…and it didn't feel as strong as it was before. "And my batteries seem to be running low."

"Have you found any EVE hypos?"

"Yeah."

"Better use..."

"I know, I know. Or else the power company cuts off all service to my hands." I took a deep breath, stuck my arm and hoped I was putting it into the right spot. I'd had some medical training before I changed majors, but none of my pre-med courses ever covered THIS. "Listen, do me a favor?"

"I'm afraid there's not much I can…"

"Just…talk to me, okay? In case you haven't been keeping up on recent events, I am all alone down here." I waited, feeling the warmth of the EVE coursing through my body, hating every second of it. "And it would be nice to talk to someone about something else besides what I'm doing right now."

Silence. Great, I spooked her…

"All right. What do you want to talk about?" Her voice was softer, and I really found myself warming to that voice.

"I dunno. Tell me about you. What do you look like?"

"Uhm…dark brown hair, blue eyes. Short, I suppose you could call me 'petite'."

"I'm tall, hair's…"

"I know. I can see you."

I turned my head to look up at one of the security cameras I hacked. It wasn't moving back and forth anymore. It was staring straight at me. "You can see me?"

"You made it easy. You hacked the camera at your end, made it vulnerable so I could get the feed at my end."

I suddenly felt extremely self-conscious. "Better not stare too long at me, you might go blind."

"Despite what you may think, Mr. Jacobs, under the grime and blood, you're actually easier on the eyes than you might think. You remind me a little of my father, actually."

"JUST the kind of thing a guy likes to hear."

"No, it's not what you think. My father was…many things to many people. But my father was my only real friend. He was fierce, but he was kind, compassionate."

"You should get out more." I pulled myself to my feet, the power in my hands returned to its original strength.

"I would have loved to. But I was trapped, for a long time. I'm still trapped. Trapped by my sins and my obligations and my po…particular circumstances."

I got to Emergency Access, shutting down the alert and unlocking the door to the tunnel leading to Neptune's Bounty. As I walked, I asked, "If you could be anywhere else on Earth, where would you want to be the most?"

"That's easy. Paris, France. I've wanted to go there all my life." I could tell she was smiling a bit from her voice.

"Okay, Songbird, I'll make you a deal. You play straight with me, and I swear to God that I will get you to Paris."

"You're not the first to make that promise, you know. Something always got in the way."

"Songbird, help me get through this and I will get you to Paris if I have to put you on my back and SWIM there."

"I appreciate what you're saying. I just hope you're able to make it happen."

"Well, let's get started. First off, I need you to get some information for me."

"Simple enough. I have access to the Thinker and can pull up any information I need."

"What's the 'Thinker'?"

"A machine that makes stores and processes information. It keeps Rapture going, manages mechanical and electronic processes."

"That's gotta be handy. Okay," I said as I found myself getting closer to Neptune's Bounty, "I need you to find certain pieces of info for me. Is there any way to send you information other than by radio? Some of the stuff I need is going to be pretty complicated.

"Like?"

"A map of Rapture. Blueprints. Technical schematics."

She was silent for a bit, then, "There's a Pneumo off to your right as you enter Neptune's Bounty. I'll send you a map, for starters."

"See if you can send a pencil or two and some paper."

"Will do."

"Thanks, Songbird. For everything."

"Awww, that's real sweet. You made yourself a new friend," Atlas said, completely throwing me off-balance. Almost literally.

"God-DAMMIT, Atlas!"

"No, it's really romantic, sort of."

"Atlas, would it be fair to say that I'm up the creek without a paddle? Factoring that in, wouldn't it be safe to say that I could use all the help I could get?"

"I just wanted to warn ye in advance: most of everyone around here are 'damaged goods'."

"No. Really? Apart from all the sane and sensible people I've met so far?"

"If that girl's who I think she is, she's more damaged goods than even the other citizens of Rapture you'll find wandering about. Just saying that she's had a few of her marbles shaken loose. Be careful. What she could tell you might not be all that reliable."

"I'll take that under advisement. I'm at Neptune's Bounty now." I closed the pressure door behind me and looked around. So far, so…

Oh. Okay. Set of stairs, damaged entrance, Big Daddy with its headlights off…and a crucified body on the wall ahead of me. This was not a good sign. I moved closer to see that there were suitcases full of Bibles sitting under him, and a single word written in red over the body: "SMUGGLER."

That was an even WORSE sign. As I looked around for the Pneumo thing, I asked, "Is this Atlas' work?"

"He's the one who built this place, and he's the one who run it into the ground. Nobody knows exactly what happened. Maybe he went mad. Maybe the power got to him. Maybe he decided he just didn't like people. However way you slice it, good men died. What you're seeing is just part of it. He was determined to keep this place a secret, and he thought smugglers would get sloppy, lead the people Ryan was afraid of down to Rapture."

I heard a "thunk" nearby, found the Pneumo under some debris. I opened up the canister and smiled, then sat down and started writing a message to Songbird. The list was short:

1. Figure this place has torpedo launchers for defense and to prevent people from escaping. What's the scanning frequency for them?

2. Is there a frequency I can use to contact you without anyone listening in?

3. Can Atlas be trusted?

4. What can you tell me that'll make it easier for me to trust YOU?

I sent back the message and stuck the paper and pencils into a pocket, hoping I'd come across a backpack of some kind soon. Then I checked out the map. "Well, Atlas, Songbird came through. I've got a map of Neptune's Bounty I can use in case of emergencies." I neglected to tell him the map was of the city of Rapture, since I didn't want him getting even the notion that I really wanted to stay here.

"Of the Fisheries, too?"

"Yeah. Basic stuff," which it wasn't, "but if push comes to shove or we get cut off, I won't get stuck for a way out. I hope." After a quick stop to spend my VERY hard-earned money on some supplies, I continued towards the Fisheries…

…and quickly wished I hadn't.

I stopped as I saw a shadow ahead of a woman crouching over something, then jumping STRAIGHT UP. Not a few feet or more than a few feet. Straight up and probably high enough to reach the ceiling, about ten feet over my scalp. Then a scratchy voice, something right out of the Wicked Witch's mouth: "What crawls in my garden?"

My skin did that annoying flesh-crawling bit, and I hauled up the flamethrower. I moved forward and…

Nothing. No one around.

I was actually starting to relax, just a little, when I saw something falling around me. Rose petals. I looked up fast, but I didn't see anyone. But I heard that voice again. "But the days go by like wind…" Oh yeah. Just GROOVY. They can JUMP now. I pushed forward, finding another health station and converted it. It was getting easier, now that I was working with this tech hands-on. Plus, it'll keep them from recovering if they got hurt while getting hostile.

And I was sure they would.

The next door I came through opened up into a larger area, a dock of some kind. Unfortunately, behind Door Number One was a serious problem. I almost ran right into a Big Daddy on his rounds. I backed up fast, but it looked like he didn't really notice me. Good thing, too. This one wasn't outfitted with a drill. I was carrying some sort of gun that used rivets for bullets. Wish my luck, this guy would probably be a harder nut to crack.

From my new hiding place, I surveyed my options. Two machinegun turrets at opposite ends of the docks. Metal barrels that, from the smell, weight and the way they sloshed, were filled with high-octane fuel. Probably diesel. Some other splicers that were probably sent to find and kill me, since they were keeping their distance from the Big Daddy, but weren't leaving the area.

Okay. THIS was going to require a little preparation.

Took me several minutes, but it was worth it. Hacked the turrets to make them friendly, piled up the barrels to make a nice little kill-zone. All I needed to do was stay out of the way of that rivet gun and I'd be fine. Figured I'd rile up the splicers, use the Big Daddy as a shield and let HIM take care of the riffraff.

Almost died.

I expected the Big Daddy to attack, but what I DIDN'T expect was that he had another toy at his disposal. He threw these green-glowing objects that stuck to where they were thrown. One of them got thrown too close to me. That's when I found out, the hardest way possible, that they were some sort of PROXIMITY MINE. Blew me off my feet, rung my bell something fierce. If the Big Daddy hadn't been too busy dealing with the turrets, he would've probably finished me off, all the while the Little Sister is telling the thing to kill me.

By the time he'd started heading up the ramp to my diesel trap, both of the turrets were down, all the splicers had been killed and I was feeling like five miles of bad road. I managed to squeeze off a shot, resulting in an explosion that shut off the ringing in my ears…and every other sound.

I must've passed out for a few seconds. When I woke up, the Little Sister was crying, just like the other two. I couldn't wait to cure her of that parasite in her stomach, and she fought me right up until I held my hand on her forehead.

As my vision cleared from the flash, I heard my radio activate again. I couldn't decide what emotion was stronger, exasperation that it might be Atlas, telling me to hurry up, or anticipation that it was Songbird again.

"I have seen what you have done." Tenenbaum. Well, at least it wasn't Atlas. "You have shown kindness to my little ones. Are you truly a friend to us?"

"Well, I'm not your enemy."

"Hm. Regardless, a little one brings you a gift to demonstrate our appreciation. Theirs is a Gatherer's Garden in the chamber nearby. You will find it there, but you must hurry, lest someone else benefit from your kindness. Also, be warned. More splicers are alerted to your presence by what you have done. Your presence has not gone unnoticed."

"Thanks for the heads up, lady." I pushed forward, after looking around. Still no backpacks. My pockets were started to get full and I was making noise when I walked. I would soon have to face choices one what I could carry and what I could afford to get by on. Wait. Longshoremen. Most of them used duffel bags to carry their equipment. If I could find some sort of locker room…

Hell, while I was at it, why not wish for a bulletproof vest?

Well, one thing one could say about Tenenbaum. She didn't exaggerate.

I'd found the Gatherer's Garden vending machine and a teddy bear. As soon as I picked it up, I realized that the teddy bear was too heavy to be stuffed with cotton, that there was a turret close by able to shoot ROCKETS at me…

…and yeah, I met Miss Rose Petals.

Getting the ADAM was easy. The rocket turret, that just needed a little current thrown its way and all I had to do was re-wire it before the locals came to investigate. I barely got it done in time before a group of three splicers came up from the stairs and the platform beyond them. That turret started throwing them bones faster than you can say, "This Old Man", and made my life not only easier, but more likely to continue. I was actually starting to feel that I had a better-than-awful chance of surviving this madhouse.

Then I got to the Fisheries. The room right outside looked like a cross between a waiting room and a slaughterhouse. There were bloodstains almost everywhere. Baling and gaffing hooks stuck in the walls and floor. I made it to the door and banged on it. "Wilkins! You in there?"

The small eyeslit on the door opened, revealing a man wearing a welder's helmet. "Atlas radioed ahead, says you were looking for an invite to the Fisheries."

"Yeah, could you open up real quick…"

"Well, NUTS, I say!"

"HEY! Do you have ANY idea what my last 24 hours has been like?"

"No, and I don't care."

"Well, what DO you care about?"

"If'n you heads up to the Wharf Master's office and find ol' Peach a Research Camera, MAYBE I could manage an invite…" He stopped as we both heard it. A woman singing. I spun around to see rose petals falling from a hole in the ceiling. "What was that?"

"Know anyone that tosses flower petals around?"

There was a wry chuckle from behind the welder's helmet. "My friend, YOU are FUCKED." He slid the eyeslit cover shut. I was finding it hard to disagree. What came next was nothing less than a fight that made the Big Daddy fight I first had in Rapture seem like a pillow fight.

First off, I poured ammo at her and she barely even noticed physical damage that would put down a regular splicer. I was throwing electricity at her to slow her down, but even with what I had, if I took even a moment to switch weapons, it'd open me up like a zipper on a jacket. And I was running out of ammo fast.

Just when I thought it might be a good idea to get the door behind me opened so I could run for it, Peach decided to lend a hand. A helicopter bot with machineguns entered the room, and it was chewing up the "spider splicer" somewhat fierce. The splicer shrieked and made a run for it.

I collapsed, breaking out the medical kits and literally bathing in them. When it was all over, I was healthy, but bloody. "That one's too tough for you. Look on the conveyor belt on the side of the door. You'll find something to keep you alive. Now, go get that camera and take snapshots of those that crawls on the ceiling…and then I'll let you into the Fisheries." As I walked over to the conveyor belt, Wilkins added, "Just remember, sonny friend. I smell an OUNCE of Fontaine on you, and I'll have you in a b-b-b-b-box! Atlas gives you the vouch, but I ain't turning my eye on his say-so!"

"You're all heart." A few items came out on the conveyor belt, a medical kit and something that looked like a cannon put together with spare parts. "What the heck is this thing?"

"You never seen a grenade launcher before, smart guy?"

"Guns that shoot things that go boom aren't actually standard issue where I come from." Grenade launcher, huh? As I considered where to put the thing, an idea formed. "Say, Peachy, there IS something else you can do for me that'll help me get what you need…

I couldn't help but smile as I left the door to the Fisheries behind, a new goal, a new weapon, and best of all, a brand-new backpack and a utility belt. Now I didn't have to fish for things or fumble through overcrowded pockets for things I needed. I backtracked to the Pneumo I'd found when I first entered, and sure enough, there was something waiting for me. I opened up the container indie, finding the note I'd written earlier, with some written addendums.

1. Figure this place has torpedo launchers for defense and to prevent people from escaping. What's the scanning frequency for them? "481.23 MHz"

2. Is there a frequency I can use to contact you without anyone listening in? "293.79 MHz"

3. Can Atlas be trusted? "NO!"

That part actually wasn't a grand revelation, but it was nice to have it confirmed.

4. What can you tell me that'll make it easier for me to trust YOU? "I wish I knew"

I smiled more at that. At least she was being honest.

I scribbled a quick "Thanks" on the note and sent it back, then checked the radio's frequency ranges, as well as its wattage output. At maximum output, the signal would only last for an hour before the batteries were drained, but it would be long enough.

All right. Better prepared, better informed, better armed. Time to go find a camera.

Finding the Wharf Master's Office was easy enough, there were signs a-plenty. Not to mention stairs, security cameras and crazed idiots trying to rip my face off. Those I either avoided where I could, or fought those I couldn't. I found other audio diaries, giving me a better picture of what things were like before the war. Warnings, memories, musings, doubts. Plenty of information about how dangerous and clever Frank Fontaine was. Information about the infamous slugs that were the cause of this whole mess…and how ADAM really worked. I listened as Tenenbaum herself spoke of ADAM as a biological catastrophe, and then as an economic goldmine.

Like just about every addictive drug one could mention. Just one more horrible thing about this place. Add it to the list.

I got to the office, past a hallway of file cabinets, to find a bulky camera sitting on the desk. All this advanced tech, but their cameras are twice the size of normal ones. Then I took a closer look. The device didn't just provide photos. There was a sort of typewriter assembly in the back of the housing. Plus, there was a dial on it that had no place on a normal camera, with settings like: "COMBAT", "MEDICAL", "CHEMICAL", "PSYCHOLOGICAL", "MECHANICAL" and "METALLURGIC". It was currently set to "COMBAT".

That's when I heard a voice singing, "Jesus Loves Me" and I looked up and saw one of those Spider-Splicers standing right in front of me. I nearly wigged out and dropped the camera before I realized there was a reinforced window separating us, with a lattice of metal within the glass. Plus, he wasn't looking at me.

Okay. Okay. Okay. He can't hurt me in here. I'm fine.

I remembered the camera. I raised it, focused on the splicer, then managed to take a picture, despite how badly my hands were shaking. The camera hummed, then began feeding out a large photo of the splicer. It wasn't a bad photo, but as it was revealed, I noticed that there were printed words on the reverse side, detailing information about soft spots, what the splicer's physical abilities were, and that anti-personnel rounds would work extremely well against them.

It was all I could do not to gape at the device in my hands. Who BUILT this thing? This camera could give me a real leg up in dealing with the people trying to kill me, and I had to give it to someone who probably wouldn't shed a tear over my untimely demise. Especially if he was the cause of it.

Then I remembered the Little Sisters. That made the doubts go away.

Fine. Get pictures of two more of the Spider Slicers, then bring them and the camera to Peach. Simple.

…yeah, I didn't buy that either and I'm a MASTER of bullshitting myself.

Spider #2 was relatively easy to get a picture of, since I had the camera up and ready to go as soon as I entered one of the nearby buildings. Nice picture, offered me more advice on how to fight them. One problem, though…the camera had a FLASH and now I had his full attention. I backed up fast as he started throwing more of those gaffing hooks at me, protected by the door to that section, which had closed as I backed up.

When it opened again, he and two other splicers were there, murder on their misshapen faces. Those started to turn to expressions of shock as I fired my newest toy into their midst. The grenade launcher sure had a kick to it, but was nothing compared to the kick in the faces THEY received. One shot and they were permanently dissuaded from making more trouble for me. With that, I went to work, grabbing what I could to keep me from finding myself on the wrong side of the grass. Most of it was ammunition, a couple of first-aid kits, which was nice, seeing as how I was starting to run desperately low on both. Also found more of that Audiovox devices. I couldn't carry them all with me, but I played each one, taking them to heart and holding on to the ones that provided useful information to be used later.

The more I listened, though, the worse things seemed to get. Stories about Ryan's security guys, dealing with Fontaine's thugs, genuine fear and panic from the thought of being on Frank's bad side…and good reason to do so. The man was a monster, totally self-involved, willing to do anything to get ahead, exploiting others at will.

Rapture was the perfect place for a man like him. No morals to get in the way, no laws to enforce, and worst of all, a city full of people who'd been told that they were the best of humanity. The easiest mark is someone who thinks they can't be a mark. Plus, it didn't hurt that, when Ryan placed his faith in the Great Chain of Industry, he didn't account for the fact that CRIME is an industry. A twisted, warped one, but it followed the same sort of rules.

Ryan never knew what hit him.

Time to stop resting. One more Spider splicer to go.

The third one was much easier to deal with. The photos and their evaluations of their subjects came in pretty handy, but some of their advice was a little hard to stomach. Literally. One of the handy and helpful tips included to use of Spider Splicer hearts as a means to apply first aid, due to the regenerative nature of their blood.

Thanks, but HELL NO THANKS.

I checked out some of the new equipment I'd packed up, as well as the upgraded versions that were reconfigured by the Power To The People stations. AMAZING technology, I thought, for the first time in five hours, the ability to make swift and permanent changes that would drastically alter a machine's function. A mechanic in a box.

A doctor in a tin.

A soldier in a gadget.

Superpowers in bottles.

And all you have to deal with is all the insanity, death and oppression. Operators are standing by to take your call.

This place was really starting to affect my sense of humor.

"Well well, the wharf rat didn't get himself et. You got something for me and my crew, or are you just looking to get criticized?" I was too tired and too in need of Peach's help to answer, but he sure didn't mind continuing. "You sit here a spell. I needs to set on some coffee, maybe put out silverware and the like."

As the small sliding hatch on the door closed, it occurred to me that heading in there was probably a trap of some kind. If Peach was as paranoid and as crooked as Atlas indicated, I had no assurances that he'd hold up his end of the deal. I pumped more EVE into my bloodstream and heard the door unlock.

The door opened. No one was there.

There's nothing like a nice, safe invitation to where you want to go…and this was exactly that. NOTHING like a nice, safe invitation. I walked in, seeing a body to the left, and something encased in ice. Hearing Peach's voice shocked me into full alertness. Or maybe it was walking into a gigantic freezer. "Nobody comes into MY swampy carrying the heat! Put your weapons in the Pneumo and I'll let you in."

Great. Outnumbered and unarmed, but at least he can't make me give up my plasmids. I checked my other gear to see what my options were. Plenty of EVE. Containers of ADAM from the Little Sisters. A couple of those Auto-Hack tools. And out of all the plasmids made available to me, I only had ElectroBolt.

I was starting to wonder if maybe madness and deformation was better than death after all when I realized that I DID have an ace-in-the-hole. All I needed was some dumb luck.

I walked in further, finding it getting darker and darker. I slowed down my pace, letting my eyes adjust. A gate slid shut behind me and I froze, looking around in the dark. I made out a camera to the right, a vending machine in front and a health station on the left. I couldn't make out more than that; there was a wide support pillar in the middle. I did see something promising, though…pools of water, covered with a thin sheet of ice, based on the cracks. Nobody moving, but several doors leading to other freezers. If I were setting up an ambush, that's where I'D hide. Once my eyes had fully adjusted, I fingered the two hack tools, then I sprinted towards the camera. As I started hacking it, I heard Peach say, "I bet when your boss waggled out of Hell, he done told the Devil he'd be right back. And the Devil said, 'Sure thing, Mr. Fontaine, I'll hold you a spot.'"

I finished the hack and ran around the other side, starting on the Health Station. Peach wasn't finished, though. "Ryan promised us Fontaine was dust, and here you are, doing his DIRTY…I guess that makes Ryan a bum, and YOU…!"

Dammit. He's running out of talk, which means he and his pals were working up the courage to clean my clock. Probably armed and sporting plasmids. Trying not to panic was a physical effort at this point.

"RYAN! HE WAS OURS!" Peach shrieked, and I heard something open behind me. Which was odd, since I had my back against what I thought was a solid wall. I spun around and found myself face-to-barrel with a machinegun turret.

I have no idea how I managed to get out of the way in time. I felt the heat of the first barrage pass by me and heard yelling and an alarm. Some of Peachy's boys and girls had clearly gotten the attention of the security camera. As Security Bots swooped in, I moved to the turret, shocking it, then hacking it, then diving behind a metal partition and waiting for the noise to stop.

As I lay there, curled up to keep from being seen, I heard the health station being used, poison gas issuing forth and taking out the user. Explosions and gunfire split the air. It seemed like a lifetime before the noise died away.

I opened my eyes and looked up. The hacked turret was disabled. I peeked up to see seven bodies, scattered all over the room. I thought I was alone for a few blessed, cold moments until I heard Peach Wilkins' voice. He was spitting up blood, but he was still dangerous, carrying around a box of explosives. "Come on out, you turncoat! Doesn't matter what kind of plasmids you got, I'm going to blast you to kingdom come!"

I was nearly defenseless, but I had one shot. It stood up, holding up my hands. "Don't like plasmids, actually," I said in a voice that I hoped sounded pathetic enough for him not to take me out instantly.

Peach grinned, walking towards me slowly. "Too bad you don't have plasmids, sonny. You might've actually lived through…" He stepped into the shallow pool of water between us.

I had to be FAST. If I was slow, he'd have time to throw one of those bombs at me and I'd be pate foie gras. I took a deep breath, trying to look defeated (wouldn't take much) and then I threw every volt I had left at the pool of water he was standing in. Peach went rigid as I overloaded his nervous system. He'd gone for a grenade as soon as my hand came down, but he'd only had time to pull it out and pull the pin. He now had a death grip on the munition, holding it an inch or two away from the others in the box.

And it occurred to me that standing that close to him might not be a good idea.

I dove into one of the freezers and closed the door right before the grenade in Peach's hand went off, acting as the fuse to set off all the other bombs in the box he was carrying. I thought the chamber was going to collapse, but it held. I got up, took a deep breath, then opened the doors. The freezer was still intact, but Peach sure wasn't. He was little more than a dark smear on the floor. I walked over and looked down at what was left of him, murmuring, "Never said I didn't HAVE them, just that I didn't LIKE them." As much as I hated myself for saying something so damned corny, it sure felt good saying it.

I went to the gate on the far side, which was a lot easier to open after the explosion, and collected my gear from the Pneumo just a few steps down some stairs. It felt so damn surreal, looking around at what had happened. I had to tell myself that I wasn't a ghost, that I was still alive. Somehow.

After upgrading my shotgun with another one of those "Power To The People" stations, I found more freezers around me. Just when I thought I was doomed to spend my time fighting frostbite, I found that one of the freezers was warmer than the others.

Must've been the big hole in the back of it.

I got to the sub dock, looked around at the bay. From what I could tell, the bathysphere was larger than the one I came in with. Clearly a personal model instead of a transit job, and from the look of it, the door was closed, but there were crates nearby, loading equipment. But more important than what I did see was what I didn't.

If you got a wife and child, but you hide them in a loading dock for a while, there's going to be things around that make it looked lived-in. There were no mattresses or blankets, no source of water except for the cold sea, no trash can, because what woman wants to live someplace dirty?

More importantly, there was not a single toy anywhere. Not even a makeshift one.

I knew Atlas wasn't here yet, so I didn't have a lot of time. Going to the bathysphere, I opened it and saw crates and boxes. I opened one of the boxes and found medical files. A crate held specimen jars filled with ADAM and others with live slugs. And surprise, surprise, there was barely room for one person, much less two and a half.

I went to the scrambler he'd rigged to the bathysphere. It was ready to go. I wasn't sure how much time I had to make adjustments…

Five minutes later, I was outside the bathysphere, looking at the sides when I heard the click of a revolver's hammer being pulled back. I turned around to see him. The man calling himself "Atlas." The one who'd been pulling my strings and leading me along. From his posters, I was expecting a younger man with all his hair. Instead, he was wearing a suit, looking very dapper, and bald. "You're not exactly how I pictured you."

"Back away from the bathysphere…toss your guns into the Pneumo over there. SLOW. Don't try to be clever."

"Sorry, Atlas…I thought that was your main reason for picking me." I put the guns in, one by one. "So…how's the wife and kid?"

"So, you figured that part out. How long have you known?"

"I didn't, not for sure, until just now."

His face grew cold. "You been peekin' where you shouldn't?"

"Don't need to. This place doesn't have a woman's touch, and there are no toys around. Name one child who picks up after himself even under normal conditions."

He nodded. "What else you figured out?"

"Come on, Atlas…you're not going to kill me."

"And what makes you say that?"

"Because you're not 'Atlas'…you're Frank Fontaine. And it would haunt you for the rest of your life if you threw away the chance to let SOMEONE here in Rapture realize just how you outsmarted everyone."

He looked at me for a long time, then smiled. "You're smarter than you look. Before I give you the true dirt, you mind if I check something real quick?"

"Not like I'm not going anywhere."

Fontaine nodded, then spoke again, losing the Irish accent and picking up one born in Brooklyn. "You got that right, 'boyo'." He opened up the bathysphere, checking out the scrambler, making sure that the signal was still the same and that it was still functional. It should've been; I knew that if I deactivated it, he'd have killed me and fixed it again. And right now, my survival depended on him still being sure he had the upper hand. He came out to find me sitting on one of the empty crates. "So. Tell me what you figured out, and I'll tell you everything…AFTER I've left."

"Hey, you're the one with the gun."

"That's right. So…tell me how smart you are."

"Well, first thing was the wife and child bit. While scavenging around, I found a flyer for a play written by Sander Cohen, about a romance with a ghost. 'Patrick and Moira'? Bet you didn't expect those 'spider slicers' to be theater buffs. Also, I started to suspect something after listening to the audio diaries left around, talking about how Frank Fontaine was killed. Next thing you know, Atlas is using resources held by Fontaine, powered by ADAM. The poorhouses and the orphanages? Ready-made soil to grow yourself both Cadmus' army AND provide enough little ADAM factories to keep your army powerful, and obedient. Timing was too convenient, and I don't believe in coincidences."

"Had to strike while the irons were hot. Timetable was a little hasty."

"And then there's the guy who died in my arms. God, how that must've burned. Setting that up must've taken a few years of planning, money, anticipating the right tool needed to give you this place. Then you gambled on him surviving a plane crash. You killed everyone else on that plane, all to get him here, and then Fate dealt you a bum hand. I bet you had something you could use to get him to dance to your tune. Not hard to imagine with all the genetics work done here. Changing bodies, changing minds. What was it, by the way? I'm curious."

Fontaine frowned. "It was 'would you kindly'. You can't _imagine_ what it took to create him, prep him for what I wanted him to do, send him topside, then get him here in a way that didn't show he'd been here to begin with, what I went through to get my ace in the hole. I didn't put all my eggs in one basket. There was always a chance, even a small one, that he wouldn't make it to the finish line. I lost the chance to control Rapture, but that doesn't mean I won't be able to leave without some party favors. I've already sent a message out, and in a couple of weeks, I'll be picked up by a ship that'll take me and everything I have to France, where I can replicate everything Rapture has to offer. Mechanical, genetic, even some of the artistic stuff. Sander Cohen's work alone will set me up in business for a decade."

"And then, you provide everything that Rapture is to the world."

"Well…certain parts of it. The power of the Bomb is NOTHING compared to what's down here. Think of what governments will pay for a taste of plasmids. Soldiers that can flip over tanks. Spies and assassins that can go into an area unarmed, without guns or gadgets, but still cause more damage than an entire platoon of Marines. Flawless new faces for criminals within a day and no scarring."

"Of course, you'll mention to them LATER that if they don't want their weapons to start melting on them, they'll need to pay more to the only supplier on the planet. You."

"Right in one."

"And you'll have no trouble creating it on a grand scale, not once you re-open Little Sister Orphanages in some country willing to turn a blind eye to turning little girls into ADAM factories."

Fontaine smiled. "Listen. You're smart, you're tough and you already need the ADAM. Come with me. I brought enough food for a month or two, with two people, I'd be willing to go a little hungry if it's someone I can count on. If you come with me, you won't have to fight splicers and Big Daddies for sips of ADAM, you'll be able to have a tall glass of it with your breakfast every day, twice on Sundays. Of course, it's either that…or be stuck down here with Ryan's boys and girls hunting you like an animal for the rest of your life. And I don't see you lasting the week, even as smart as you are."

"So you're offering to take me up with you."

"That's the plan."

"Thanks, but I'd rather be eaten alive by rats."

Fontaine's frown turned angry for a second, but the winning smile was back quickly. "Suit yourself. More for me. Oh, don't worry, I'll think about you while I'm in my hundred-room mansion, smoking Cuban cigars and banging the most beautiful women on the planet. And I'll think, 'That Jacobs guy...I thought he was so smart, right up until the point where he got STUPID.' I'll probably think that once, maybe twice a year. Christmas and Easter."

"You're all heart. Hasn't it occurred to you yet that if you bring all this stuff topside, you're going to turn the world into the same kind of shitheap Rapture is now? You don't think there's going to be repercussions, consequences to this?"

"Jacobs, it's going to be the same old shitheap the world was before. Only real difference is that I'm going to be sitting at the top." He walked to the bathysphere. "Maybe I'll come back once I got my own submarine fleet, take control of what's left of this place, you know, in case I need more slugs and more rubes. Maybe the Thinker will still be running and I can take that with me, too."

"The Thinker? What's that?"

"I'll tell you all about it while I'm on my way up." He entered the bathysphere and spared me one last look, shaking his head and closing the door behind him. I waited until he submerged, then I pulled open the back of the service radio and started changing frequencies, FAST. After a few moments, I turned the radio back on to hear Fontaine's voice. "…scrambler on…guidance system locked. Hey, 'boyo', you still there?"

"No, I'm in Key West." _KEEP HIM TALKING._ "So, what's this about the Thinker? What is that?"

"You don't think a place like Rapture would keep running if it was up to people to run it? Somebody came up with a machine to do their thinking for them, manage all the menial, mechanical stuff like regulating air, power, communications. It's probably the smartest machine in Rapture, and it's over in Minerva's Den. Rapture Central Processing. It knows all, sees all. It…"

A sudden beeping sound came in. "What's going on over there?"

"Ryan sent a bunch of torpedoes after me, for all the good they'll do. All I have to do is just change direction...and they'll just…huh…" I heard the sound of him grunting as he changed course; thanks to the gain pulled up on the service radio in the bathysphere, I could hear everything that was going on. "What the…the scrambler ain't working?"

"But you checked it before you left, and it was giving off a signal. Maybe there's something wrong with the signal strength?"

"The strength? But…" I practically heard when it dawned on him. "YOU changed the signal strength!"

"Really? Are you sure someone as STUPID as me could do that?" I asked innocently.

"YOU SONUVABITCH!" I heard the sound of the throttle being thrown forward. "I can do this…I just have to outrun 'em! I…!" There was a wrenching mechanical noise. "What the HELL…?"

"That would be the drop in manifold pressure. Happens when you overwork an engine when gasket bolts aren't properly tightened, and you're overloaded. More weight, more strain on the engine. At normal speed, wouldn't have been much trouble. At FULL SPEED, however…"

"I'm going to KILL you, do you HEAR ME?! I'm going to beat this! I'm gonna get out of this and when I do I'm going to come back and I'm gonna roast you like a pig! I'm FRANK FUCKING FONTAINE! I OUTSMARTED ALL OF YOU!"

"Yeah? Think you can outsmart the seven torpedoes riding your ass?"

"BASTARD! YOU FUCKING WHOREMONGERING…!"

The transmission cut out. Somewhere out there, the biggest con-artist in Rapture had just become shark chum. All of his dreams of empire and power and wealth, all the pain and misery he'd caused others, and all it added up to at the end was a cloud of red and scattered debris.

I switched the service radio back to its original frequency. And apparently just in time. "Hello? Jacobs? Are you there?"

I sat down and smiled. "Hello, Songbird. Nice to hear your voice again."

"Where are you?"

"Fontaine's private smuggling dock."

"Where's Atlas?"

"Feeding the fish." I told her about what I'd found out about Atlas and Fontaine, what he told me and what his plans were.

"Wait. His scrambler was working, so how did the torpedoes connect?"

"I turned down the strength of the signal. Since Fontaine was close to it, he only checked to see if it was giving out a signal…not if it'd be strong enough to block out the OTHER signal."

"What other signal?"

I was particularly proud of myself for this one. "Just before I got to the bathysphere, I re-wired the service radio I was carrying to change the frequency to the one you gave me, made it give off a signal strong enough to attract the torpedoes, and increased the gain on the microphone. When I got to his escape vehicle, I switched radios with the one in the bathysphere itself. Once he left, I jury-rigged the one I had, so he'd still think we were on the original frequency."

"So when he talked to you, he was sending out a signal the torpedoes could track!"

"Fontaine did always love the sound of his own voice, no matter which one he was using. So the louder he got, the stronger the signal was. He literally talked himself to death. Loosening the manifold bolts was easy; nearly tripped over a toolbox coming in. I knew that he'd panic as soon as he saw his plans going south."

She was silent for a time, then said, "So…what are your plans now?"

"I haven't the foggiest." I took a long, deep breath. "Ryan's got this paranoid delusion that I'm from the CIA or the KGB. I wish I could just talk to the guy, let him know I'm not the Bad Guy here. I'm not trying to bring down his city or bring other people here. I don't know anyone I HATE enough to do that."

A new voice came on the conversation. "The parasite always criticizes that which he cannot create himself."

RYAN. Speak of the devil.

To Be Continued...


End file.
